It’s true what you’ve heard, you really don’t want to throw out a number first when negotiating for a salary. The idea here is that you want to listen—to gather all the information you can in order to shape your strategy for the negotiation game. Therefore, if you can find out what the other person is thinking, you have an advantage.

I’m all about giving real life examples and being explicit about money because demystifying earning is good for people who are generally undervalued.

If you guess someone is going to offer you $55k/year for a job, and you ask for $60k thinking that’s a close but higher number, you may miss out on her actually offering you $65k. You low-balled yourself. If you get the other person to throw out her number first, and she says $65k, you can respond by asking for $70k. 

But remember, just as it’s to your advantage to know what the other person is thinking, it’s to the other person’s advantage to know what you’re thinking. Therefore, you may get pressured to reveal your range or ideal salary first. If this happens, you can try to stall but in my experience it doesn’t work. If this happens to you, aim high. From the other person’s perspective she has 2 options: 

1. If she was going to offer you less than what you throw out, she can see if you’ll take a lower rate and risk you saying no. If you say no and she’s motivated to find a way to hire or keep you, she’ll get creative to find you the money you want. 

2. If she was going to offer you more, than she’ll just stay quiet and accept your number which saves her money. Don’t be mad at yourself if this happens. I’ve heard so many people (maybe myself included) who feel like they failed because their number was accepted too quickly—leaving room to see that they probably could’ve gone higher. If you were pressured to reveal your number first, you took a hit early on in the game. But if you aimed high with that number than hopefully it’s still a number that you can feel proud about bringing home. And remember, this will not be your last game.